Margo Enthoven

Hi all, my name is Margo and I’m one of the (currently) five PhDs working on sustainable entrepreneurship a.k.a. “The Sustainables”. During my bachelor and master in socio-spatial planning an human geography, I became a “sustainable”. I found a true love for this field of study and the people studying it. This happened in the coffee room of my old faculty. Here students lounge on second-hand couches, discuss societal issues and drink filter coffee, freshly brewed by the study association board. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a more inspiring place.

In this cosy atmosphere, I learned about sustainability issues. In between coffee moments my professors taught me about environmental planning. I learned that, unfortunately, policymakers do not always have the power to solve sustainability issues. Politicians, CEOs and consumers often have other concerns, of which economic ones are dominant. A turning point in my education came when I read a paper on the economic benefits of preserving a species of whale. With complicated formulas, the authors calculated that the costs of preserving the whales were only a small investment compared to the economic loss of extinction. No politicians, policymakers or economists could argue against this paper. It seemed to me at that time that if I wanted to contribute to sustainability, I had to speak the economic language.

A few years after this change in perception I once again found myself in an inspiring place: the office of “The Sustainables”. We discuss sustainability research and how we can make life outside of our work more sustainable. Some of these ideas are a bit too crazy: we have not yet managed to bake a climate-neutral cake. However, I have no doubt we are in the right place to see this happen. If we don’t manage to do it ourselves, our campus in Leeuwarden puts us right in the middle of innovative sustainability initiatives in Friesland.